Weis reluctant to discuss ruling in Ardelean case

April 28, 2010

Police Supt. Jody Weis was reluctant to weigh in today on Cook County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Gainer's ruling in favor of a Chicago police officer charged with drunken driving in a 2007 crash that killed two men.

"It's a decision by the court, and then it's a process afterward," Weis said of Gainer's ruling that there was no probable cause to arrest off-duty officer John Ardelean. "I really don't have a lot to say about that. I mean, court's rule. I may not agree with it, but it really doesn't really matter what I think about it. It's a ruling by the court.

"It's a ruling by the court, it's a criminal matter. I really don't know how it will affect morale," Weis said after appearing with Mayor Richard Daley at a news conference to push the General Assembly to enact tougher gun laws. "It's an officer, the court ruled in a certain way, and that's what we live with."

"I learned a long time ago not to get emotionally involved in decisions by judges," he added. "They make decisions, they rule, and we deal with them."

Weis applauded detectives for piecing together evidence in the Friday robbery and baseball bat beating of two women in the Bucktown neighborhood. Two people have been charged with aggravated battery and armed robbery, but Weis said they could face more charges as the investigation continues.

"(Detectives) pieced together so many little bits of information that lead to that successful charging," Weis said. "We have more work to do. We want to really wrap that case up tight. But every now and then you have a case like that that's just senseless. There was no need for that violence."

"What we'll normally do, we'll continue to investigate the case, See where the evidence goes, and then there will be a chance for subsequent charging down the road. So we certainly will follow the evidence and see what's there, but we hopefully want to charge them with everything we can," he said.